Hi, i'm Sharon from Scotland.... having being very lucky to have had a vacectomy reversal on the NHS with only an 18 month wait - hubby recieved an appointment on 18th July to go in on 21st July, we could hardly contain ourselves!!!! We decided not to tell anyone of our plans so no one would be dissapointed, anyway, 3 hours after hubby left I recieved a txt telling me that the op did not work due to the tubes being too far apart........DEVESTATION is not the word...I have been in bed since, although i'm feeling a little better today, i'm heart broken as is hubby......although we always said no to IVF, we are now wanting to look into it, that is IF hubby has good quality sperm, if any??? Looking forward to chatting as I think I need it, Sharon xx( PS, we are so fortunate that we already have 2 children, aged 10 & 8, which makes me feel so terrible for feeling so bad as there are so many of you out there that have not yet experiened having a child - so, sorry in advance for me feeling sorry for myself)

Hi Sharon, welcome to IVF central! Sorry to hear you've had such a disappointing result. I also have an almost 10 year old daughter and don't think there is anything wrong with feeling sad that you want more children and are having trouble getting there - rant all you want!

Even with low sperm quality there are great options with IVF - my hubby and I just got pregnant after 1 cycle of IVF w/ICSI (a process where they inject the sperm into the egg to fertilize) after trying to conceive for >5 yrs. It's amazing!!

IVF is quite a roller-coaster process but you'll find a lot of support here if you decide to proceed...Take care, Racquel

Thank you everyone for your warm welcomes. Racquel, congratulations on your pregnancy and hope your feeling fine! It sounds like the treatment you and hubby went through is what hubby and I should try too. Hope you don't mind me picking your brains on this one - With the IVF, did you also have the ICSI? As our reversal didn't work due to short deferens, would I have to go through any kind of prep ie injections, hormone tablets??? Sorry, i'm not sure how it works at all. I do know that i'm fine - but am intersted in the process. We will be attending a doctors appointment to discuss the failed reversal and other options, but it would be nice to have info under my belt.

Hi Sharon -- I'm sure there are lots of variations for the process but here's how it worked for us:

First, hubby and I both had to have minor surgeries. He is paralyzed from middle of his back down so after 5 years of trying various methods we finally broke down and talked to a fertility specialist. They ended up performing a testicular biopsy to remove sperm and thankfully got what they needed for ICSI to work. They froze those so they'd be ready once my eggs were ready. I had a uterine septum that needed to be removed but luckily didn't have any other fertility complications - I have a 9yr old conceived naturally from first marriage. Bottom line, once we got the sperm from him and I was healed up, we started IVF.

Even tho ours is male factor infertility I still had all the meds, hormones etc to ensure I released extra eggs for retrieval. They want to get as many eggs as possible so they have better chance of eggs fertilizing and poss even having some left over to freeze for subsequent transfers in case your first cycle doesn't work. The stimulation cycle where you release extra eggs is the longest and most expensive part - subsequent transfers from frozen embies involves less meds and is less expensive...

Bottomline our process was Stimulation, then Egg Retrival and Fertilization via ICSI, then Egg Transfer, then 2WW for preg results then another 2WW for 1st sonogram. So, get ready to have your patience tested! This is just one example, I'm sure there are tons of variations on the IVF w/ICSI process. ICSI is just one method they can use to fertilize the eggs if sperm has low motility, etc...